


Last Year's Love

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drink in the sunshine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Year's Love

Chris thinks that everyone with a cracked heart comes to visit him  
eventually.  He was going to play band-house to this group he met in  
Philly six months ago.  They were cool, he remembers, when he talked  
to them, and if they knew who he was, they didn't make a big deal out  
of it.  Only, when they called to say they were in Orlando, Brit was  
curled up on his pool deck, crying and fairly drunk and occasionally  
belting out Patty Loveless tunes.  She wasn't, like, naked or  
anything, but she was Britney Spears, and she was loaded.

And maybe six or eight months ago he could have taken her to Justin's,  
but instead he herded her upstairs and put her to bed.  Took the band  
out for drinks for six hours and when they came back she was gone,  
leaving just a note on Chris' mirror written in eyeliner saying  
thanks.

Justin visits, too, when he's considering doing things he shouldn't,  
like singing vengeance-kareoke somewhere very public, like maybe  
Disneyworld.  Every I-hate-you song Justin knows is one more he might  
get up and howl out in front of strangers if he didn't have Chris to  
bother.  He sleeps on Chris' porch swing so he won't write 'WHORE' on  
everything of Brit's still in his house and send it all back to her.

Chris comes home in the afternoon to find Brit stretched out by the  
pool and Justin asleep on the swing, and decides that he's become  
Switzerland.  Britney tilts her head at Chris and smiles when he  
crouches beside her.  He rubs her back.  She doesn't look at Justin,  
and Chris wonders if they're pretending to be alone.

"Hey."

"Sorry.  I just like your pool, you know?"

"Yeah."

She curls up, eventually, in one of the chairs in the shade.  It's  
enough that he doesn't have to worry about sunburn for her.

Justin buries his face in Chris' arm when Chris tries to wake him up.    
"Mmmmm."

"You're hiding from Brit in my yard.  With her."

"Yeah.  It's okay, I think."

Chris nods.  He crawls in behind Justin on the swing and presses his  
face into Justin's nape for a while.  Dozes while the swing rocks.  He  
bought it for this.  Southern houses are supposed to have amazing,  
padded swings for napping on, so he has one.  He wakes up, barely,  
when Brit leaves.  She touches his arm and kisses him softly, walks  
away barefoot.

He wakes up again and it's dusk, and Justin's warm against his chest.    
One of them moved, though, because Justin's face is pressed against  
Chris' chest, now.  Chris isn't sure how Justin's managed to stay this  
enormous kid while Chris got old.  Older.  Justin's just bigger,  
funnier, a bit thicker-skinned but not really any fiercer than he was  
when he was a prickly kid on the audition circuit.

Justin kisses him, just above his collar.

"J?"

"Thanks for this all, you know?"

"Yeah."

And.  It's not the first time.  Chris has spent warm, quiet evenings  
with Brit, too, mostly dressed and kissing her skin until she stops  
wanting to drink herself unconscious.  She's even tinier than he is,  
and he doesn't want to drive her to Emergency with alcohol poisoning.    
So he kisses her, sometimes.  Sometimes she kisses him.  He wakes up  
some mornings and she's curled beside him, entirely dressed, right  
down to her runners.  

Justin doesn't ask for it quite as often, but he's been doing it  
longer.  He hasn't cried through the whole thing with Britney, but  
Chris comes home sometimes and finds Justin pacing and howling along  
with Vertical Horizon on the stereo.  He vibrates with the jacked-up  
bass, and Chris has to turn everything off, take Justin upstairs, kiss  
him until he's calm.

This is the same.  It's night.  There are crickets and big, soft  
plants and water, and it's not cold.  The swing's big enough for both  
of them if they're careful.  Justin kisses him until Chris kisses him  
back.  Soft and open all over his mouth.  Hand on his hip holding them  
together.

On the ground, eventually, with the swing's cushions spread under  
them.  Justin on his back and Chris on top of him, leg across him,  
touching.  The same boy-sweet mouth he's been kissing for an hour and  
years, his hand up Justin's shirt.  Justin arches every time Chris  
catches his nipple.  He gasps with every twist.  And it's dirtier than  
Chris usually plays him for, but Justin loves it.  He's relaxed in a  
way he hasn't been in weeks.

Chris pulls back, eventually.  Sits on his hip and watches Justin  
stretch.  It's fully dark.  He didn't turn any of the house lights on,  
so they're down to reflective sky and the ambient light of the city.    
He can hear cars in the distance, Justin's breath up close.  Justin's  
heart.

Justin pulls at him and pins him down.  Rolls on top and makes the  
next kiss count.  

This is as dirty as anything Chris has ever had, and it's never gone  
anywhere.  It's only the most primitive version of cannibalism, or  
oral sex.  He'll wake up tomorrow with Justin curled beside him, both  
of them dew-soaked.  Coffee and scrambled eggs while they try to wake  
up.  Chris listens to the messages Britney left for him last night  
while he cooks, then erases them.  He bumps his shoulders against  
Justin's in the early morning light and waits for one of them to pull  
himself together.


End file.
